Department for International Trade

Department for International Trade: Official Hospitality

Deidre Brock: To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how much money his Department has spent on hospitality in each of the last five years.

Greg Hands: It is not possible to fully separate the individual costs of hospitality from wider events management costs and venue hire fees. Department policy states that expenditure should be kept as low as possible, compatible with the occasion.

Cabinet Office

Cabinet Office: Contracts

Chris Ruane: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what organisations his Department has outsourced functions to since 2011.

Oliver Dowden: All contracts over £10,000 are published on Contracts Finder, which you can find here; https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Search

Cabinet Office: Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group

Ian Blackford: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has met representatives of (a) SCL Group, (b) Strategic Communication Laboratories and (c) Cambridge Analytica.

Mr David Lidington: Departments publish quarterly details of Ministers’ meetings with external organisations on GOV.UK. Cabinet Office returns can be viewed using the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ministers-transparency-publications.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Poultry

Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential effect on the viability of poultry businesses of the increase in permit charges for intensive poultry farming in April 2018.

Dr Thérèse Coffey: The Environment Agency undertook an economic assessment and this has been published in the link below. It is their view that the increase in permit costs is small in comparison to other start-up costs. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/environment-agency-charge-proposals-from-april-2018

Agriculture

Nigel Dodds: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to bring forward legislative proposals for the Agriculture Bill.

George Eustice: On 27 February the Government launched the consultation document ‘Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit’. The consultation includes a chapter on the scope of the Agriculture Bill. We have announced that an Agriculture Bill will be introduced in the current session of Parliament.

Livestock: Transport

John Redwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to improve standards of animal welfare in transit after the UK leaves the EU.

George Eustice: Our manifesto made it clear that we would take early steps to control the export of live farm animals for slaughter, once we leave the European Union, and we are currently considering options.